


Some Fictional Level Coincidence

by lodessa



Series: Janeway/Chakotay Tumblr Prompts [25]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Meet-Cute, destination wedding AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:14:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14965913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: Multi-stop airplane travel is the worst, but Chakotay finds a silver living in the form of one Kathryn Janeway who just so happens to have the exact same itinerary and destination as him.





	Some Fictional Level Coincidence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyTremaine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTremaine/gifts).



> Written to the prompt: “We’re both on the same multiple stop flight schedules to go to the same destination so we might as well stick together. Also your shoulder is a very comfortable pillow.” 
> 
> (Clearly I was influenced by the "Destination Wedding" trailer.)

“The good news, ma'am, is that it looks like your connecting flight to San Francisco out of O’Hare is also running late and there’s a flight three hours later out of JFK that I can put you on which will get you were in time.”

“Do it,” the petite woman in front of him tells the airline associate, with very clearly barely contained frustration.

There is a husky authority to her voice, the familiarity of an American accent against the range of others in a foreign international terminal, that almost breaks Chakotay out of the cloud of gloom generated making off a turbulent flight from Mumbai to Heathrow only to find his next flight had been majorly delayed. Almost.

He barely has time to register the profile of her face as she turn to leave the podium before it’s his turn to deal with the complications this delay is causing to complex flight plans.

“Unfortunately, Sir, you are going to miss your connection to Phoenix, but I can reroute you through O’Hare and still get you to SFO tomorrow.”

He agrees in a daze, wishing he’d turned down this damned invitation, and the employee already reprinted his boarding passes by the time he connects the dots and realized that not only was the woman in front of him in line also going to San Francisco, they must be on the same flights the whole way now.

The smell of her perfume or body wash, subtle and a little spicy, lingers in his memory and he glances across the gate’s waiting area to where she is standing, one hand on her hip while the other holds her cellphone to her ear, clearly exasperated. Her hair is twisted up in some elaborate and sizable style and she’s wearing black slacks and a black sleeveless shell, red blazer draped over her carry-on. Traveling for business, he surmises. Chakotay wishes he was.

Alright, he more or less is traveling for professional reasons. It may be a wedding he’s attending but the bride’s father is one of the few professional contact he has left, and that’s a connection he can’t afford not to nurture, not given his tenuous position right now. 

The woman has ended her phone call and has turned to look at him and Chakotay realizes that he must be staring, but she doesn’t look away so he figures why not.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing we’re both being rerouted through the same set of flights to get to San Francisco.”

She gives him an appraising look before answering, subtly intense and he finds himself wishing he’d checked his appearance at some point in the last few hours.

“So you want to what… commiserate?”

“Unless you have something better to do, why not?”

“First round is on you then,” she smiles halfway and it lights up her whole face.

“By all means,” he grins back at her, knowing just how persuasive many people find his dimples, as they walk towards the nearest bar, “And what will you be drinking, Ms…”

“Doctor,” she smirks, veering away from the bar and towards a cafe, “Dr. Kathryn Janeway and I’ll be having coffee, black.”

It’s so obvious that it shouldn’t be charming and maybe it’s the sleep deprivation he’s in the middle of but that doesn’t matter because he is incredibly charmed.

“I’m Chakotay,” he informs her, adjusting to her new course, “And are you a medical doctor, Doctor Janeway, or a fellow PhD like me?”

“Both,” she raises one eyebrow like her words are a dare and he’s pretty sure if he knew what the dare was he’d already be giving in to it.

They get their coffees (hers the aforementioned black and his with enough cream and sugar to make it palatable) and find a seat relatively removed from screaming children and selfie stick wielding tourists.

“First time in San Francisco?” she asks, promisingly initiating a point of conversation.

“No,” he replies, pushing aside painful memories to reply, “I spent over a decade studying and then working at Stanford, but its been a while.”

He’d done the right thing, whistleblowing about what was really going on in the department, but it had been hard, to lose his second home as well as decimate his career.

“I’m at Cal,” she reciprocates after a moment where he’s pretty sure she has put some dots together and remembered some passing headline about the scandal, “Though I’m on sabbatical this year so this is just a quick jaunt back for a childhood friend’s wedding.”

There’s something about the way she says “childhood friend” that rings as evasive, but he doesn’t push it. She doesn’t owe him any explanations.

“A wedding?” he realizes, “Why that’s why I’m flying out there. Is yours in the city or-”

“Wine Country, up in St. Helena. One of those ghastly destination affairs that lasts most of the week.”

“I think,” he confirms, “That we are probably going to the same wedding.”

They are going to the same wedding, they are on the same series of three flights there, and they are somehow miraculously sitting right next to each other on each. Its some fictional level coincidence, but Chakotay decides not to question it.

It is five cups of coffee, a two flights, and three glasses of whiskey later, when Dr. Kathryn Janeway finally confesses that the groom, Mark, is an ex. By that point Chakotay has learned all about her work with nanotech, about her dog Mollie, about her growing up in the midwest and following in her father’s footsteps in pursuing medical research. He’s told her all about his passion for anthropology, about the defense contract work he’s ashamed of, about his father and what happened with the oil pipeline and the protests.

She falls asleep halfway through the flight from Chicago to SFO and he’s a little jealous (he’s one of those people who just can’t sleep on a plane no matter how exhausted he is) but he’s also a little something else as he head tilts to the side to rest against his shoulder, face relaxing in sleep and making her look so much younger than the 39 years of age he knows she is now. He lets her sleep.

“Apparently,” she smiles conspiratorially upon waking as they begin their descent, “You make an excellent pillow.”

“I guess,” he tells her in the same tone, “If the hotel has a deficit of them you’ll know where you look.”

Of course, they agree to share a rental car. As they cross the Golden Gate bridge and then come out of the mist and fog on the other side into the warm Marin sunshine, he looks across the car at Kathryn Janeway and wonders if just his once the universe is not conspiring against him but for his benefit. 

(Which is exactly how he will phrase it much later on during their wedding toast, right before he lets everyone laugh at the fender bender he got into immediately following that moment… apparently he was distracted.)


End file.
